Wishful Thinking: Being the Person You Actually Are

I have an imaginary version of myself who is a wonderful grandmother.

She bakes, and does all the grandmotherly things grandmothers do.

There are probably biscuits cooling on a wire rack, something bubbling away in the oven, and grandchildren perched around the kitchen bench waiting to lick the spoon. There is flour on somebody's nose, laughter in the room and that wonderful smell that children will supposedly remember decades later as Nan's kitchen.

I rather like her.

The trouble is, she isn't really me.

Or perhaps more accurately, she isn't the grandmother my life has allowed me to be.

Sometimes wisdom finds its voice more easily on the page.

I also imagined I might become the wise grandmother. The one her children and grandchildren would turn to when life became confusing, somehow trusting that I would know what to say. But conversations often evade me. Thoughts that seem perfectly clear inside my head don't always arrive so gracefully when spoken aloud.

I am better at thinking and writing than I am at deep conversation. 

Perhaps wisdom doesn't always need to be spoken across a kitchen table. Maybe mine finds its way onto a page instead — where I have time to question, reconsider, research and find the words I couldn't find in the moment. And perhaps, one day, those words will say something I wasn't quite able to say out loud.

Circumstances change. Families become complicated. Children grow up and build families of their own. Relationships shift. People move away, disagree, reconnect, become busy or simply create lives that don't resemble the picture we once carried around in our heads.

And somewhere amongst all of that, we can find ourselves mourning something that never actually happened.

Wishful Thinking and the Life We Imagined

There is nothing wrong with imagining a life.

When we're younger, most of us do it without even realising. We imagine the home we'll have, the person we'll become, the relationship we'll have with our adult children and perhaps, eventually, what sort of grandparent we'll be.

But imagination can quietly become expectation.

And expectation can become comparison.

We don't only compare ourselves with other people. Sometimes we compare ourselves with the imaginary person we thought we would become.

That's a much harder comparison to recognise.

I can look at the grandmother baking with her grandchildren and think, I would have loved that.

And I would have.

But continually wishing circumstances were different doesn't create that kitchen.

It only risks making me overlook the life I actually have.

Perhaps There Is No Typical Grandmother

I read.

A lot.

I research things simply because something has caught my attention and I need to know more about it. One question invariably becomes seventeen browser tabs and another book added to the reading list.

I write blog posts that perhaps not many people read.

And yet I love writing them.

I love craft. I love watching children create something from almost nothing. Give them cardboard, paint, glue, string and permission to make a mess and they'll often produce something far more interesting than anything an adult could have planned for them.

I love children being active, curious and creative.

And I especially love finding unusual ways for children to communicate with the people they love — little notes, handmade things, questions, drawings, messages and ideas that allow generations to know one another.

Maybe that's my kitchen.

Not the literal one with the biscuits cooling on the bench.

Maybe the place where we give something to the next generation doesn't have to look the way tradition told us it should.

Perhaps one grandmother passes down recipes.

Another teaches her grandchildren how to garden.

Another tells ridiculous stories.

Another takes them travelling.

Another makes things.

Another teaches them to question.

Another introduces them to books.

Another simply becomes the person they know they can talk to.

There isn't only one way to leave something of ourselves behind.

Being the Person You Are

There is a strange freedom in reaching the point where you stop trying to audition for your own life.

I don't need to become my imaginary grandmother.

I can appreciate her. I can even feel a little sadness that some parts of that imagined life didn't happen.

But I don't have to live permanently inside the wish.

Because while I'm looking towards the life I didn't have, I might miss the person I actually became.

And she's not so bad.

She reads.

She thinks.

She makes things.

She asks questions.

She writes.

She remains curious.

She loves without limit.

And perhaps somewhere, someone reads one of those little blog posts and thinks, I thought I was the only one.

That's worth something too.

The Gifts of Imperfection

The book that seems made for this reflection is The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown.

Brown explores the expectations that encourage us to become who we think we're supposed to be rather than accepting who we actually are. Her guideposts to wholehearted living include authenticity, creativity and letting go of comparison — ideas that sit beautifully beside the question of whether we're living our own lives or measuring them against an imagined version.

One brief line particularly belongs here:

“My story matters because I matter.”

Perhaps that's the point.

Our story doesn't have to resemble somebody else's to matter.

And it doesn't even have to resemble the story we once imagined for ourselves.

A Thought to Take With You

Maybe there is something you thought you would be by now.

A different parent. A different grandparent. More successful. More adventurous. More social. More settled.

Perhaps it's worth asking:

Do I actually want to become that person — or have I simply spent years believing I was supposed to be them?

Wishful thinking can be lovely.

Sometimes dreams give us direction.

But occasionally the better thing is to put down the picture of the person we thought we'd become and take another look at the person standing here now.

She may already have quite a lot to offer.

Namaste

Deb xx

Thoughtful writing across life, mind, and meaning.

📚 Read With Me

I haven’t finished The Gifts of Imperfection yet, so this is one I’m exploring alongside you.

Perhaps we can read it together and see what stays with us.

→ Find The Gifts of Imperfection in the Deb Eternal Book Library